But upon further reflection, the best way to make sure you have a high percentage of apprentice leaders is to make sure that you have coaches (leaders of leaders who oversee and equip leaders). It is the coach who equips the leader to develop an apprentice. A good coach will serve alongside the leader and apprentice leader. The coach helps the leader recruit an apprentice to whom he can invest his or her life. It seems to always come back to coaching. Great coaching always precedes great moments. And a lack of coaching is the great obstacle of the church today.

Why are coaches so important? Because coaches have three important roles as they invest relationally in the lives of leaders.

COACHES EQUIP LEADERS

Great coaching is all about equipping (Eph. 4:11,12). And equipping happens best through relationships. That is why great coaches discover that a monthly 1-on-1 meeting is a must. These monthly meetings at Starbucks, early breakfast or over the phone give the coach an opportunity to listen, ask questions and equip a leader. Some of the best meetings come after the coach has observe the leaders' group/community in action and provide feedback and encouragement. Additionally, there should be regular huddles where all the leaders gather with their coach. During these huddles the leaders not only learn from the coach but are equipped by other leaders the coach has brought together.

COACHES SERVE LEADERS

Great coaches have a mindset, “I will do whatever needs to be done to develop this leader.” That may mean coming alongside the leader and serving with them. Depending on the type of group/community, it might mean setting up and tearing down, or coordinating logistics for mission project, or helping with childcare, or you name it! Coaches will serve their leaders by praying for them consistently and regularly. Coaches will do whatever it takes!

COACHES RECRUIT LEADERS

Great coaches are people who have developed leaders so they know what the leader is looking for in an apprentice. They help the leaders identify an apprentice leader. They help the people they are coaching train an apprentice leader. They assist the leader in releasing that apprentice to become leader. And together they celebrate when an emerging apprentice steps up to become a leader.

I’m convinced that apprenticeship is essential to movement-making and movement is how the mission of Jesus gets accomplished. But great leadership and apprenticeship may never happens without coaching.

Let me know what you think? Would you agree that great coaching is built on relationships that allow the coach to come alongside leaders and equip, serve and recruit? Would you add another role? Or emphasize different roles?

Check back later this week and I will give you six questions that every great coach asks.

July 23, 2014

I believe the church in the United States is on the verge of what could be a great moment! Let me stress, “could be.” And I say, "could be" cause there is one huge obstacle in our way. But before I get to that, here are a few of the reasons for my raw enthusiasm about the church of tomorrow:

All of that is tremendously encouraging to me. All that causes me to believe that God has great moments ahead for the church.

But here is my great fear. What happens to the young leader with unbridled enthusiasm when they discover that church planting and living on mission is really hard? Where does he or she turn when they start to feel like they aren’t making a difference? What happens when scoreboard tells them they are losing? What then? Do they quit? Who is going to be there to “snap them out of the daze?” Who is going to be there to help them “believe they can win?”

The next couple decades has all the makings of a great moment for the church in the U.S. We have put some great players into the church planting and missional movement game. The important question is how do we keep these people who are leading these missional communities and new churches motivated and equipped? How do we make sure that those churches and missional communities continue on mission and don’t get frustrated and quit when they come up against their first challenges!

Ephesians 4:11,12 gives us the answer. This is a passage that I’m personally re-examining these days. Paul says, “So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up.”

The one word that jumps out in that text is the word, “equip.” And “equip” is a word not found anywhere else in the New Testament. It literally means “the bringing of the saints to a condition of fitness so the parts of the body can work together.” Fitness? Teamwork? When Paul talks about equipping, in laymen’s terms he is talking about coaching! If Paul was here he might say, “preparing each player to do his or her best for the team.”

You know what always precedes great moments? Coaching!The single biggest obstacle to greatness is equipping and coaching! So here are two challenges to make sure we see the great moment that God has ahead for his church:

The first challengeis for any young leader – who is providing coaching in your life to make sure you are equipped to for the challenges ahead?

The second challengeis for veteran leaders – who are you coaching? Are you using the life experiences (wins and losses) to equip young leaders for the great moments ahead?

July 21, 2014

Great moments seldom happen by accident. Great moments don’t always come when we expect or how we expect; but there is something that almost always precedes any great moment. The following 20-second video clip is considered by most one of the greatest moments in college basketball history. Watch this clip because it will help you discover what precedes every great moment.

It's 1992 and a last second shot by Christian Laetner gives Duke the 104-103 win over Kentucky. I have seen that shot hundreds of times. I’m not even a Duke fan and I never get tired of watching that play. They show that play every year during March Madness as they highlight great moments in college basketball!

What we remember is the last second winning shot. Over and over again we remember that great moment. But what we don’t often think about is what preceded that great moment. And what preceded that great moment was this - great coaching. There was a coach who demanded hours, weeks and months of rigorous physical training and preparation. There was coach who taught them how to play the game; how to play together and how to win. There was a coach who prepared them for every possible game situation. There was a coach in the huddle, who in 60 seconds could draw up a play and remind the team that they were prepared for this!

Coach Mike Krzyzewski was Duke’s coach and he wrote about that great moment in his book, Leading With The Heart: “. . . I instinctively realized that I had to get them to snap out of the daze they were in and I had to make them believe, positively, that they could win this game. Then I had to get them all singing out of the same hymnal. And it all had to be done in less than one minute.”

What we don’t often think about is all the coaching that always precedes a great moment like that! We forget about the coaching.

And in my own life and ministry I know the great moments I have experienced are because of the “coaches” that have relationally invested in me. If you know anything about COMMUNITY, the church I lead you know that we are a church with 13 locations in Chicago. We have plans to start 9 more in the next 6 years and a dream of 200 locations in Chicago We want to impact thousands and thousands of people! We also lead a church planting network called, NewThing with more than 150 reproducing churches globally. It’s awesome to be a part of it. I’m so grateful to God for the great moments.

But what you don’t see and is easy to forget about - is all the great coaching! My dad, who planted a church in Chicago when I was 4 years old and stayed there for the next 37 years was a great coach. On Sunday nights growing up we would sit around the table eating cheese and crackers and talk church. He’s been a great coaching!

When I moved to Naperville to start a church, by the grace of God Lyle Schaller became a friend and mentor. If you don't know Lyle’s name, Google it. He wrote more than 50 books on church life and at one point was named “the most influential religious leader in America.” As a young church planter he would invite me over to his house to talk about church leadership – great coaching!

In the last few years, Bob Buford who founded Leadership Network has been a mentor. Bob always reminds me, “Dave, your fruit grows on other peoples trees!” That is great coaching!

The one thing that always precedes great moments is coaching. So with that in mind let me challenge in two ways:

First, are the people in your church and your organization being coached? Who is challenging and investing in your volunteers and staff? Are they getting the necessary preparation in order for them to experience great moments?

Second, are you being coached? Who is asking you the tough questions? Who is challenging you to be all that you can be? Who is preparing you for the great moments ahead in your own leadership?

Before there are great moments, there is always great coaching!

Come back here over the next few days and I will continue this conversation on coaching with some thoughts on what Ephesians 4:11&12 has to say about coaching. Before you take off, leave me a comment and tell me about one of those great coaches in your life and how they coached you.

February 17, 2012

"I've never been to your church, but I love your church." This was what COMMUNITY Campus Pastor Shawn Williams heard while getting his hair cut. The conversation started when the women cutting his hair asked Shawn what he did for a living. He said, "I'm a pastor at the Yellow Box." As soon as he said that she responded, "My neighbors are a part of that church. In fact, I've recently gone through a divorce and it's been really tough being a single mom. But my neighbors who go to your church have been a big help getting me through it. They've assisted me with carpooling; they've brought me meals and they've even helped me with small home improvement projects." Then she looked at Shawn and said, "I've never been to your church, but I love your church." I don't know your definition of a missional church, but stories like that tell me a church is doing it!

Many people wearing the badge of missional experts have said that missional and mega are incompatible; a church like COMMUNITY can't grow to be a large church AND exist for something outside of itself. Unfortunately, many times they have been exactly right. But for the last 24 months COMMUNITY has been in a transition to fulfill the dream of mobilizing every person in our large and growing church for mission. Last April myself and Alan Hirsch published our plan for transitioning a church for missional engagement in our book, On The Verge. The On The Vergetransition lays out the following three moves for a church who wants to become missional:

"See It" - This is the phase where you capture the imagination of people through story-telling and teaching. During this move people have the "ah-hah" and begin to see the mission of Jesus for the very first time.

"Get It" - This is the phase where people begin to understand and feel passionate about the mission. They begin to truly understand that our God is the missio Dei and as his people we too have a mission. They also begin to feel a passion for the mission and it becomes this compelling cause for which they want to give thier lives.

"Do It" - This is the phase where people begin to implement what they have seen and now understand into the flow of their everyday lives. They eventually move to the place of becoming unconsciously competent about mission. Simply put, they do it!

After 24 months of working through these three moves at COMMUNITY and gaining missional momentum we had a breakthrough last weekend. We asked all our small groups to work through a 6-week process of determining their mission. Some of the groups would be "1-mission groups" and others would be "Multiple mission groups." Last weekend we had about 1400 students and adults and 140 small groups stand on our stages and say out loud their mission, be annointed, prayed for and commissioned by the leadership of our church. The pic to your right is just one of our celebration services where groups filled the stage and made a public commitment to the mission of Jesus. More than 70% of our people are in small groups and 73% of our groups participated in the commissioning service this weekend. To you that might be a lot of numbers, but to me it is a sign that a very large church is clearly mobilizing large numbers of people for difference-making mission.

No, we are not done! Far from it. We have a long way to go. We have to sustain the missional momentum that we are now experiencing. But one thing I am increasingly convinced of is this: the large church can be used as a platform for energizing and mobilizing large numbers of people for missional engagement. In my own opionion, mega AND mission - it can be done!

January 22, 2012

In the movie Moneyball, Brad Pitt plays the part of the Oakland A’s General Manager Billy Beane. While most of the baseball old timers and scouts had a set of stats they used to look for young prospects, Billy Beane understood that the only stat that mattered was runs scored. Through statistical analysis he changed the game of baseball forever and was credited with indirectly bringing a championship to the Boston Red Sox for the first time in 85 years. In much the same way churches should not confuse a variety of different stats like attendance and offering with the one stat that matters most. Jesus explained the one thing that matters most: “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.” (Matthew 28:19,20) If making disciples is what matters most; how do you keep track of disciple-making? How does a church know if they are doing a good job at making disciples? I'd like to invite you to leave your comments and thoughts about how you would define a disciple of Jesus. I'm particularly interested in how you would define a disciple in a way that is measureable. So, what stats do you think should matter to a church?

December 14, 2011

My good friend Bob Bouwer was having lunch with the campus pastor of COMMUNITY a couple weeks ago when he said, "Everyday at the top of my journal I write these three letters: E (emotional), P (physical) and S (spiritual) and then give myself a 1-10 rating." He went on to explain how this daily routine of rigorous self-evaluation helps keep him in a healthy place.

As I heard Bob talk I was inspired to do the same; but to use a tool that is a regular part of our coaching of leaders at COMMUNITY and explained on page 120 of Exponential: How You and Your Friends Can Start a Missional Church Movement. We refer to this tool as "checking your RPM'S." This tool is based on Luke 2:52 that says, "Jesus grew in wisdom (mental) and stature (physical), and in favor with God (spiritual) and men (relational)." So for the last week on a daily bais I have put at the top of my journal these four letters: R (relational), P (physicial), M (mental) and S (spiritual) and given myself a 1-10 rating. I am already convinced that using this tool on a daily basis, rather than just during coaching sessions may be one of the most powerful self-leadership tools around. I would strongly encourage you to try it for yourself. Let me briefly explain each of these and give you a few questions to ask in your own daily self-evaluation.

RELATIONAL: Our relational world typically includes the people with whom we interact on a regular basis: our immediate family, friends, neighbors, coworkers, and small group members. Here are some questions you can ask yourself.

How are my relationships at home?

What about my marriage, dating, or family life is going well? What’s not going so well? What would I like to change?

Who do I consider my closest friend? How is God using that relationship to grow me?

What are my relationships at work like?

Which of my relationships give my energy and life? Which are the most challenging or draining?

PHYSICAL: Our physical well-being is often the most overlooked aspect of a leaders life. Yet diet, exercise, sleep, and rest are all vital to our ability to lead effectively. If we are serious about developing as a whole person, we have to take seriously our physical well-being. Here are some good questions to ask:

Am I getting enough rest?

How is my current energy level?

What am I doing to maintain good health when it comes to exercise and eating habits?

Is there anything about my physical health that I'd like to change?

MENTAL: Another often-overlooked aspect is the development of our minds. In order for us to stay sharp and be a lifelong learners, we need to be challenged. Here are some questions we can ask to see if we are developing mentally:

What have I been learning lately?

How am I applying what I are learning?

What magazines, books, or websites do I read or access?

What thoughts have been dominating my mind? Are they drawing me closer to God? Are they pulling me away from him?

SPIRITUAL: It is also imperative that we discover and act on whatever it is that helps us grow deeper in our relationship with Jesus. Here are some questions we can ask to see how we are developing spiritually:

December 08, 2011

Time Magazine compiled a list of the 10 best commencement addresses ever. This list included speeches by Winston Churchill (Harrow College, 1941); John F. Kennedy (American University, 1963) and even Steve Jobs (Stanford, 2005). Also on the list was Stephen Colbert (yes, that Stephen Colbert!) and his 2006 commencement address at little Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois. Colbert, who Knox had just awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Fine Arts, closed his address with a challenge about the power of saying, "Yes": "When I was starting out in Chicago, doing improvisational theatre with Second City, there was really only one rule ... When you improvise a scene with no script ... you have to accept what the other improviser initiates ... Well, you are about to start the greatest improvisation of all. With no script. No idea what's going to happen, often with people and places you have never seen before. And you are not in control. So say yes. And if you're lucky, you'll find people who will say yes back. Now will saying yes get you in trouble at times? Will saying yes lead you to doing some foolish things? Yes it will. But don't be afraid to be a fool. Remember, you cannot be both young and wise. Young people who pretend to be wise to the ways of the world are mostly just cynics. Cynicism masquerades as wisdom, but it is the farthest thing from it. Because cynics don't learn anything. Because cynicism is a self-imposed blindness, a rejection of the world because we are afraid it will hurt us or disappoint us. Cynics always say no. But saying yes begins things. Saying yes is how things grow. Saying yes leads to knowledge. Yes is for young people. So for as long as you have the strength to, say yes."

You may or may not like Colbert’s politics, but either way if you want to lead your church toward mission, you’d better listen to his words of wisdom and lead with a "Yes!" The one thing every leader possesses that every follower needs to engage in mission is permission. And permission always comes in the form of a "Yes." Leaders, if you want to see missional engagement in your churches and ultimately a movement, you must lead with a "Yes" to your people's creative ideas. If your followers can’t get permission from you, then they may never be engaged in the mission. The great temptation is to respond with questions of how. But questions of how need to wait. If we respond with “How could you do that?” we immediately begin to sow seeds of doubt by responding to the individual’s vision with a question about strategy. If we ask, “How much would that cost?” we are responding to their vision with a question of tactics. The questions about “how” will come later on, but the reflex of an innovative leader needs to be "Yes."

October 25, 2009

We have a very strong leadership culture at Community so I am fortunate to be surrounded by lots of very capable and highly competent leaders. And one of those amazing leaders is Kirsten Strand our Community 4:12 Director. Over the last six years Kirsten has led a tremendous shift in the culture of Community making us more compassionate about justice, passionate about the poor and has created a longing in us to see under-resourced communities transformed. In short, she has helped us become more like Jesus. Kirsten is a leader that I really admire! Today, the Naperville Sun had an article featuring her as "one of the best and brightest and up-and-coming leaders." So, check out this article and get to know a leader I really admire.

September 11, 2009

This 8-week term group challenges participants to genuinely look at the core within them. It moves beyond the assumptions of being a values-based individual into the accountability of knowing what you truly value at home, at work, and in your community. Johann Von Goethe said it best, “Things that matter most should never be at the mercy of things which matter least.” GOOD to the CORE is about what matters most, with a strategy to insure it is not at the mercy of what matters least! GOOD to the CORE rips away the veneer to reveal the truth about our ultimate benchmarks: personally, professionally and organizationally!

For more information on click HERE. You can sign up for this group by e-mailing Sue Komarynsky.

September 08, 2009

I had the privilege of being a part of The Idea Camp in Washington, D.C. a couple weeks ago where the theme was compassion and justice. I did a workshop on "Doing Missions in the Burbs" and was also asked to do an interview in the opening session along with Mark Batterson of National Community Church. If you would like to watch the interview of Mark and myself it is now available by clicking HERE.

August 28, 2009

One of the coolest things about what I do is getting a chance to hang out with some phenomenal world class leaders. (Did I mention that I will be connecting with Tim Keller this next week - awesome!) At the top of my list of world class leaders is my brother Jon. He was recently interviewed in an article, Seven Questions for Jon Ferguson. Read and learn from one of the best!

August 07, 2009

David Gergen is the editor-at-large at U.S. News & World Report and political analyst for CNN and PBS. He has served as a White House adviser to four presidents; Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and Clinton. He is also a professor at Harvard’s School of Public Leadership. An active participant in American national life for 30 years, Gergen has a lifetime of experience in observing and participating in high-capacity leadership.

The following is some of his comments during his interview with Bil Hybels during the 2009 Leadership Summit.

What were the unique strengths and weaknesses of each of the presidents with whom you served?

Nixon: he was the best strategist. Some one who can look further back can look further ahead. But he was also held everyone at the periphery at first; but once he trusted you he
would bring you in closer and you discovered that there is a dark side.
He had his demons; I don't know where they came from. There were
demons that he could not control that ultimately brought him down.

Ford: he was the most decent man. You did not have to keep your back to the wall with him. I find that people how are decent should be prized; they are so rare. But he was sometimes naive and didn't fully understand that politics is a rough sport.

Clinton: he had a very quick mind; extremely bright guy. But the quality I most admired about him was his resilience. While he would not want to be in the same sentence as Nixon; he
also had cracks in his character. He made mistakes and he should have come
clean immediately and ask forgiveness.

Reagan: he was the best leader in the White House. He was a principled man who had a contagious enthusiasm. There is something that you are all up to. He was also a gifted communicator. But his detachment was a weakness; you need to keep your hands on the wheel. There were times when he didn't have a strong team and it hurt him.

Other comments by Gergen:

If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, do it with others.

Don't underestimate symbolism in leadership

How to give an effective speech:

First, open people up to yourself

Logic of your message - work their mind

End is really important to come back to the emotion. There needs to be a call for action. You have a a choice: "Come, let us think" vs. "Come, let us march"

The personal habits of leaders do matter. The best leaders are those who have regular habits. Self-discipline. Churchill would take a nap in the middle of the day and claimed that he had two days rather than one. Being physically fit is important. If you allow your bodies to go flabby, you will allow your mind to grow flabby. Building time in your day to reflect is important. Building time in your day to be with the people you love and the people that love you. Research tells us that people who are in loving relationships in the 60's tend to live a lot longer and tend to be happy about life.

Young people today care about social change and are on a spiritual journey. They are on a search for their spiritual well-being. Their spiritual foundation is important to them; it helps them find their moral compass ("true north"). One of the great dangers of leadership is that your ego gets so large that you think the rules don't apply to you. Faith, family and friends are great anchors that keep you grounded. Gandhi - "if you want to change the world; be the change you want to see."

August 06, 2009

Gary Hamel was ranked as the #1 Business Thinker of 2008 by The Wall Street Journal and called "the world's leading expert on business strategy" by Fortune Magazine. He is the author of Leading the Revolution and The Future of Management.

The following are some of the thoughts from Gary Hamel's talk Manage Differently Now given at the 2009 Leadership Summit:

Our problem is not greed or materialism; our problem has to do with change...we live in a time of unprecedented exponential change.

The reality is that most organizations get shackled to one model and stuck in one paradigm.

Over time visions become strategies and strategies get codified and and you get stuck in an old paradigm.

Success is a self-correcting phenomenon.

The really hard thing is not inventing, but re-inventing yourself and bringing about change.

We are in too big of a hurry to find a solution; we need to first spend time thinking through all the crazy possibilities.

3. Deconstruct what you are already doing.

Most churches end up doing the same stuff because they read the same books and use the same consultants. We need to reconsider everything..spare the gospel. Why can't a sermon be created though an open-source conversation? Why can't we bring laptops into the sanctuary to take notes? Why is the sermon more of a lecture and not a discussion? Why...

Mental models of leadership teams are increasingly irrelevant but at the same time their power is increasing.

Is the challenge finding great leaders OR leveraging the people that God has sent us?

Young people want to work for corporations that functions more like the web where everyone has a voice and is judged by what they produce.

Jesus is the answer and He is the hope for humanity. And the church is God's plan A for delivering that message. There is no plan B!

July 07, 2009

Got a chance to hangout last night with L.V. Hanson, Ambassador for the Catalyst Conference and head honcho of the Catalyst Road Trip. Since he was new to Chicago I had to treat him to some Lou Malnati's pizza. He's a great guy and we had a great time. In the video we talked a lot about church planting and where Community is headed as a missional church. If you want to read his post about our conversation it is on the Catalystspace blog titled First Full Day in Chicago and it includes some stuff on multi-site that is not in the video.

April 25, 2009

Jon French did a quick interview with me on his blog and asked these two questions:1. How do you know you were called into ministry?2. What is the one thing you now know that you wish you would have known your first year in ministry?If you are interested in how I answered those questions, click over to Jon's blog.

What I would like to know is how would you answer those two questions. Leave me your answer.

March 25, 2009

Since I am hosting all the Exponential Conference podcasts I got a chance to spend some time talking with Perry Noble today. Perry is the Lead Pastor at NewSpring Church in Anderson, South Carolina. Since it was started it has seen amazing growth to 10,000 attenders at 3 campuses. We talked about leadership, being a reproducing church and church planting. Perry highlighted his 7 Huge Myths of Church Planting - good stuff!

Perry is an entrepreneur at heart and loves to start new things. We have that in common. I literally get an adrenalin rush when someone suggest a new idea. So, my favorite part of our conversation was when he talked about trying to tell the difference between his entrepreneurial drive and a prompting of the Holy Spirit. I asked him how he can tell the difference and he gave a three part response:

"Make sure it is an idea you can't get away from." - See if the
idea sticks around and continues to surface in your imagination and
conversation. If you can't get away from the idea, it may be from God.

"Give it time." - Don't think you have to act on every dream. Do what Moses told God's people do, "wait". Wait for other people to confirm. Wait to see it is confirmed in scripture. Wait for it to be confirmed in prayer. If it is confirmed, it may be from God.

"If this fire is from God, He will poor gasoline on it." - Ask God to help you see the world the way he sees the world. This can be painful, but it can also open your eyes to what God really wants. If the spark turns into a flame, it may be from God.

My favorite line from Perry was when he said this about leadership: "Leadership is as easy as listening to God." Very simple, but true!

March 13, 2009

Whenever I encounter someone who is making a significant impact I start asking questions. If I find that person motivated and passionate about what they are doing, I explore their story even more. Most of the time I quickly learn that at some point in their life they encountered the power of Discovering the Dream that God put within them and are living that dream.

God has a unique dream for each of us to discover and live out. I would love to see every one encounter the power of discovering and living out the dream that God has placed in them. That is why NewThing is hosting Discover the Dream at 8:00- 11:30 am on Monday April 20, 2009, at Exponential Conference in Orlando, FL.

We are looking to connect with emerging leaders who want to live out God’s dream for them through a reproducing church movement. Have you thought that maybe God is calling you to something new? Do you have an entrepreneurial spirit that is begging to be unleashed to impact God's kingdom? May be you aren't sure what your dream is, or you have an idea, but you haven't defined that dream. If so, Discover the Dream is an experience that will put you on the path to discovering how to make God’s dream for you a reality.

We want this to be a personal experience so space is limited to the first 80 people who sign up. For more information and registration click HERE.

March 06, 2009

Last week I was invited along with 7 or 8 other pastors to spend an afternoon with Bill Hybels. The purpose of the gathering was to get us some pumped about the upcoming Leadership Summit. (Which by the way - it looks like they have put together an extraordinary line-up). But after we spent about 30-45 minutes talking about the Summit we got to do just Q & A with Bill the rest of the afternoon. And I'm telling you, if there is any doubt - the guy is a genius when it comes to the topic of leadership!

One of the concepts we discussed I scratched out on the napkin pictured above. The topic was leadership tension during tough times. The two tensions are as follows:

DEFINING REALITY - According to the Peter Drucker, "the first job of a leader is to define reality."

FAITH BASED OPTIMISM - The second job of the leader is to envision the future in way that inspires the people that follow him to believe for and help create a new reality.

One of my observations is that the percentage of time you spend doing each of these activities differs based on what part of the organization or movement you are leading. With the inner circle of top level leaders you can spend a lot more time defining reality and confronting the brutal facts with a fair measure of faith based optimism. With the masses you need to lead with a lot more faith based optimism and a measure of defining reality.

As you think about how you are leading through tough times what are some of your new learning's?

March 02, 2009

Kary Oberbrunner just posted the first in his new series of Leadership Interviews that he is calling 5 Questions. Kary asked me to be his first interview in this series of leadership profiles. So, if you want to hear a little more about the BIG IDEA, NewThing and where I've screwed up (yes he asked!) - check it out.

January 02, 2009

If you are starting the new year by wanting to beef-up your bloglines or just find some great blogs about church leadership, ministry and all things christian - then I have the place for you!Alltop does exactly that! They collect lists of the best internet sources of information on all topics. One of the lists they have compiled is about church leadership, etc; and you can look at their list by clicking HERE.